--- title: This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied | TIME description: Carol Juel and Margaret Keane thought Synchrony could launch a company-wide program to offer parents some relief. By the end of their meeting, they had hatched an idea to offer a free, remote summer camp. canonical: https://time.com/video/JmzHtAyp/ og:title: This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied og:description: Carol Juel and Margaret Keane thought Synchrony could launch a company-wide program to offer parents some relief. By the end of their meeting, they had hatched an idea to offer a free, remote summer camp. og:url: https://time.com/video/JmzHtAyp/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JmzHtAyp/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied twitter:description: Carol Juel and Margaret Keane thought Synchrony could launch a company-wide program to offer parents some relief. By the end of their meeting, they had hatched an idea to offer a free, remote summer camp. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JmzHtAyp/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied [Watch (HLS stream): This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JmzHtAyp.m3u8) (5:25)  _Published 2021-06-21. Carol Juel and Margaret Keane thought Synchrony could launch a company-wide program to offer parents some relief. By the end of their meeting, they had hatched an idea to offer a free, remote summer camp._ --- Jul 28, 2023 4:06 AM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [CAROL - Official U.S. Trailer - The Weinstein Company](/video/eghorYG4/) ### CAROL - Official U.S. Trailer - The Weinstein Company [Welcome to Camp Firewood - Wet Hot American Summer](/video/B5qYf6i4/) ### Welcome to Camp Firewood - Wet Hot American Summer [Fiat Chrysler Offering Free Tuition to Dealership Employees](/video/P5GB9e9n/) ### Fiat Chrysler Offering Free Tuition to Dealership Employees --- ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en-US Synchrony financial, we are a leading consumer finance business. We are the bank behind many brands that you would know. So the Amazon store card and the credit card space, PayPal credit. We recently during the pandemic launched the card program for Venmo. And for Verizon, so we have very large card programs with big brands. Synchrony actually sent their employees home pretty early. So I think we went home full time, the second or third week of March, with the intent to probably stay home through the end of April at that point, which now in hindsight, doesn't seem like a big deal. But at the time, it was shocking. But then from a work perspective, it was like, how are we going to figure out how to both work full time and help our six year old on with her Zooms because she actually had Zooms. So it was a lot of just blocking and tackling with my husband and figuring out how do we make this work? We have to be adaptable. It was Friday morning, before Memorial Day weekend, and I was having virtual coffee with my boss, Margaret. And she said, Carol, you must be you must be can't wait for the kids to get out of school. Virtual Learning is so difficult. And I said no. I said Margaret, when they're out of school, there's nothing, we don't have... There's no camps. There's no sports, there's no vacation. I said, so a parent right now it doesn't matter, big kid or little kid, you've got a problem, because there's nothing for them to do this summer. And we just started talking about, well, what could we do. And in that moment, in 40 minutes of coffee Synchrony summer camp was born, the idea of we as a company wanted to do something, within three weeks, we had a structure that said, we're going to develop a camp, we're going to have campers, externs, mentors. So teenagers are going to teach, are going to somehow engage, you know, these 4 to 15, or 4 to 14, I can't remember what the age range was, but younger children, right, like engage them for 30 minutes session or 20 minute session, like I didn't have high expectations. But initially, I just thought okay, well, they're gonna, you know, have some arts and crafts, and maybe some, you know, fitness routines or whatever, just thinking my vision of summer camp. But it was incredible. I mean, the breadth of programming, the wide variety of programming was so impressive. It was STEM, arts and arts and crafts, exercise, health and wellness, there were cultural diversity and inclusion sessions. So I was just really impressed with all the thought that had gone into the actual educational component of the content. I heard about it directly from my mom, because she had gotten some communication from the team who was just starting to organize it, asking employees if their children would be interested in either being an extern and like leading sessions, or attending sessions as a camper. And so at first, my mom, you know, explained it to me and said, Oh, this might be interesting for over the summer. And I was like, Oh, I don't know, I'm not sure if that's something I'd want to do. But I mean, I wasn't sure about anything that summer, and neither was anyone else. But then I filled out the application for being an extern and explained my idea for leading sessions on sign language, and was accepted and Synchrony said, you know, we'd love to have you, we'd be sessions. And I really started to get into it once I realized that I would have this opportunity to teach. and Z. So basically, for the externship, I had to do one session per week for five weeks. But I would meet with my mentor, you know, about two to three times a week to go over the session and plan. And then asynchronously, I would, you know, work on my slideshow or practice. And before every session, I play the guitar for them because I'm I love the guitar and introduce the session. So you know, practicing for that. So overall, I think I probably prepared a lot for those sessions, but it was all really worth it. Do you like healthy food or do you like junk food? A lot of my mom's friends would like text her and be like, Oh my gosh, like my son or my daughter went to your daughter's session today. They loved it. So that was happening a lot during the summer. And then my mentor was incredible. Like, I remember after the session, she would like FaceTime me she like you're such a superstar like go you did perfectly like oh my gosh, where she would give me notes like, um, oh, the students were like writing in the chat. They loved you and things like that really encouraged me and helped me you know, build my confidence and I think after that my session just became like 10 times better. As a working parent, I mean, again, like my anxiety level has been through the roof and Synchrony has just been so supportive throughout it. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to work for this company. And I really do hope they do the summer camp again because it was a hit in our family. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Company Launched an Emergency Online Summer Camp to Keep Employees’ Kids Occupied","description":"Carol Juel and Margaret Keane thought Synchrony could launch a company-wide program to offer parents some relief. By the end of their meeting, they had hatched an idea to offer a free, remote summer camp.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JmzHtAyp/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2021-06-21T15:54:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JmzHtAyp.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/JmzHtAyp/","duration":"PT5M25S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/JmzHtAyp/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```